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Page 62
A CITY NOTE-BOOK
Well, now let us see in what respect we are richer to-day than we
were yesterday.
Coming down Fifth Avenue on top of a bus, we saw a man absorbed in a
book. Ha, we thought, here is our chance to see how bus reading
compares to subway reading! After some manoeuvering, we managed to
get the seat behind the victim. The volume was "Every Man a King,"
by Orison Swett Marden, and the uncrowned monarch reading it was
busy with the thirteenth chapter, to wit: "Thoughts Radiate as
Influence." We did a little radiating of our own, and it seemed to
reach him, for presently he grew uneasy, put the volume carefully
away in a brief-case, and (as far as we could see) struck out toward
his kingdom, which apparently lay on the north shore of Forty-second
Street.
We felt then that we would recuperate by glancing at a little
literature. So we made our way toward the newly enlarged shrine of
James F. Drake on Fortieth Street. Here we encountered our friends
the two Messrs. Drake, junior, and complimented them on their thews
and sinews, these two gentlemen having recently, unaided, succeeded
in moving a half-ton safe, filled with the treasures of Elizabethan
literature, into the new sanctum. Here, where formerly sped the
nimble fingers of M. Tappe's young ladies, busy with the compilation
of engaging bonnets for the fair, now stand upon wine-dark shelves
the rich gold and amber of fine bindings. We were moved by this
sight. We said in our heart, we will erect a small madrigal upon
this theme, entitled: "Song Upon Certain Songbirds of the
Elizabethan Age Now Garnishing the Chamber Erstwhile Bright With the
Stuffed Plumage of the Milliner." To the Messrs. Drake we mentioned
the interesting letter of Mr. J. Acton Lomax in yesterday's
_Tribune_, which called attention to the fact that the poem at the
end of "Through the Looking Glass" is an acrostic giving the name of
the original Alice--viz., Alice Pleasance Liddell. In return for
which we were shown a copy of the first edition of "Alice in
Wonderland." Here, too, we dallied for some time over a first
edition of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, and were pleased to learn that
the great doctor was no more infallible in proofreading than the
rest of us, one of our hosts pointing out to us a curious error by
which some words beginning in COV had slipped in ahead of words
beginning in COU.
* * * * *
At noon to-day we climbed on a Riverside Drive bus at Seventy-ninth
Street and rode in the mellow gold of autumn up to Broadway and
168th. Serene, gilded weather; sunshine as soft and tawny as
candlelight, genial at midday as the glow of an open fire in spite
of the sharpness of the early morning. Battleships lay in the river
with rippling flags. Men in flannels were playing tennis on the
courts below Grant's Tomb; everywhere was a convincing appearance of
comfort and prosperity. The beauty of the children, the good
clothing of everybody, canes swinging on the pavements, cheerful
faces untroubled by thought, the warm benevolence of sunlight,
bronzing trees along Riverside Park, a man reading a book on the
summit of that rounded knoll of rock near Eighty-fourth Street which
children call "Mount Tom"--everything was so bright in life and
vigour that the sentence seems to need no verb. Joan of Arc, poised
on horseback against her screen of dark cedars, held her sword
clearly against the pale sky. Amazingly sure and strong and
established seem the rich fa�ades of Riverside Drive apartment
houses, and the landlords were rolling in limousines up to Claremont
to have lunch. One small apartment house, near Eighty-third or
thereabouts, has been renamed the Ch�teau-Thierry.
After crossing the long bridge above Claremont and the deep ravine
where ships and ferryboats and coal stations abound, the bus crosses
on 135th Street to Broadway. At 153d, the beautiful cemetery of
Trinity Parish, leafy paths lying peaceful in the strong glow. At
166th Street is an open area now called Mitchel Square, with an
outcrop of rock polished by the rearward breeks of many sliding
urchins. Some children were playing on that small summit with a toy
parachute made of light paper and a pebble attached by threads. On
168th Street alongside the big armoury of the Twenty-second
Engineers boys were playing baseball, with a rubber ball, pitching
it so that the batter received it on the bounce and struck it with
his fist. According to the score chalked on the pavement the "Bronx
Browns" and the "Haven Athletics" were just finishing a rousing
contest, in which the former were victors, 1-0. Haven Avenue, near
by, is a happy little street perched high above the river. A small
terraced garden with fading flowers looks across the Hudson to the
woody Palisades. Modest apartment houses are built high on enormous
buttresses, over the steep scarp of the hillside. Through cellar
windows coal was visible, piled high in the bins; children were
trooping home for dinner; a fine taint of frying onions hung in the
shining air. Everywhere in that open, half-suburban, comfortable
region was a feeling of sane, established life. An old man with a
white beard was greeted by two urchins, who ran up and kissed him
heartily as he beamed upon them. Grandpa, one supposes! Plenty of
signs indicating small apartments to rent, four and five rooms. And
down that upper slant of Broadway, as the bus bumbles past rows of
neat prosperous-seeming shops, one feels the great tug and pulling
current of life that flows down the channel, the strange energy of
the huge city lying below. The tide was momentarily stilled, but
soon to resume action. There was a magic touch apparent, like the
stillness of a palace in a fairy tale, bewitched into waiting
silence.
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